


changing dreams into reality

by closedcaptioning



Series: sdr2/drv3 crossover rarepairs [15]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Crossover, M/M, Rare Pairings, and nagito "but you're a symbol of hope" komaeda, featuring: shuichi "ultimate insecurity" saihara
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-25 07:55:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30085902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/closedcaptioning/pseuds/closedcaptioning
Summary: The dreams aren’t nightmares, but Shuichi always wakes from them with his heart folding in on itself like a fist, his breath ragged. Every time, he tosses back the covers and heads for the school gardens to clear his mind. Very few of his classmates are awake at two a.m.But Nagito Komaeda is an exception. Isn’t he always?
Relationships: Komaeda Nagito/Saihara Shuichi
Series: sdr2/drv3 crossover rarepairs [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2206776
Comments: 6
Kudos: 16
Collections: Quality Fics





	changing dreams into reality

The first time Komaeda finds Shuichi, the boy is huddled under a tree, face buried in his arms. He jolts up at the sound of Komaeda’s approaching footsteps crackling on the leaves underfoot, and he would probably bolt if he wasn’t frozen with fear, seeing this ghostly specter of a person floating towards him in the dark.

“Saihara Shuichi, Ultimate Detective.” The figure hesitates, and Shuichi recognizes his voice. He’s heard it often in the halls of the school, and he’s heard the whispers that follow in his wake: Nagito Komaeda, and his Ultimate Luck. Don’t stand too close.

 _Good thing I’m sitting_ , Shuichi thinks dryly, and Komaeda shuffles closer. 

“Ah, yes, it is you! I was afraid for a second that you were an evil spirit, and I was about to be cursed for all eternity.” Komaeda laughs. “I already am, of course!” He sinks down and folds his legs under him, smiling in a way that is slightly unsettling for reasons Shuichi can’t exactly pinpoint. “You see, I’m—”

“Komaeda. Ultimate Luck,” Shuichi says, surprising himself and Komaeda with his own voice. “I've heard of you.”

Komaeda looks taken aback for a second, but then he claps his hands and laughs. “Of course you do! You’re an Ultimate! And a detective nonetheless. You probably had me pinned the second I set foot in the garden.”

Shuichi’s hand reaches for a phantom cap, hand hovering above his hair for a moment before falling back to his side. Right — he left his hat in his room. He wishes he had something to shield him from Komaeda’s too-bright smile, from the manic gleam in his eyes. Komaeda wears the expression of someone who hopes for too much and expects too little. A pessimistic optimist, or an optimistic pessimist.

“N-no, I didn’t even realize you were here until you were right in front of me,” Shuichi mumbles, and with a sudden cold shock of realization, he quickly swipes at the wetness under his eyes, still there from earlier. Maybe Komaeda didn’t notice his tears in the dark.

“Mm. It’s okay, you don’t have to downplay your talent to make me feel better about my terrible one.” Komaeda stretches like a cat, hands reaching behind him as he arches up, moonlight catching on his hair and the sharp planes of his face. “What are you doing out here in the middle of the night?”

The question catches Shuichi off-guard, and he instantly knows why. It hadn’t been the first thing that Komaeda had asked, so he had supposed that the question would not be brought up at all. To ask it now is to find Shuichi unawares, and thus increase the probability of eliciting a true answer. Then again, Shuichi thinks, cutting his eyes to the boy sitting across from him, maybe he’s overanalyzing. Kaede has been trying to remind him to take things slower, one step at a time. Besides, Komaeda looks harmless now, all fluffy hair and bright eyes, not at all like a scheming mastermind trying to needle a secret out of Shuichi.

So Shuichi takes a deep breath ( _one, two, three, four_ ) and lets it out ( _fi_ _ve, six, seven, eight_ ) and says, “I had a dream that woke me up.”

Komaeda makes a small sound of agreement. “I can’t even fall asleep most nights,” he admits. “I’m afraid of having the kind of dream I might believe in completely.”

 _Dreams, not nightmares_ , Shuichi notes. “So you’re afraid of having to lose whatever you had in your dream world?”

Komaeda blinks, and then smiles hugely. “Exactly!” he says, delighted. “You are the Ultimate Detective! Or perhaps the Ultimate Mind Reader.” He sits up straight and scoots forward, until his knees are touching Shuichi’s. Shuichi shifts, a little uncomfortable with the proximity, but he has a solid tree at his back and nowhere to move away to.

“What do you dream about, detective?” Komaeda asks, a little softly. “Solving murders, maybe? Or committing them?”

“W-what?”

Komaeda laughs. “That was a joke!” Some nebulous emotion flashes across his face, and Shuichi isn’t so sure he's telling the truth. But the moment passes, and Komaeda leans in, conspiratorial. “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours,” he offers. “It can help to talk about them.”

Shuichi’s hand reaches for his cap again, but there’s no escape from the intensity of Komaeda’s stare. “Okay,” he says quietly, and breathes a quiet sigh of relief when Komaeda rocks back on his heels and smiles, waiting. “I have this dream about — well — it’s kind of different every time, but the general idea is the same.”

“Yes…?” Komaeda prompts.

“I’m in someone’s room. It’s not my room, I know that for sure, but I’m not sure whose it is.” Shuichi bites his lip. That’s not technically a lie; he only has the vaguest general sense of whose room it is, and it varies from night to night. But something in him is still curling up in shame at the thought of telling this boy, a near perfect stranger, everything about this very private part of himself, a part that even he doesn’t want to fully acknowledge. “The room’s owner is there too, in the bathroom.” He hesitates. “They are, uh, taking a shower, I think. At least, there’s this thick steam that’s coming from the bathroom, filling up the whole room like a sauna.”

Komaeda nods, eyes intent on Shuichi’s face. Shuichi squeezes his eyes shut and forces himself to keep going. Maybe it _will_ help to talk about it. He’s suddenly relieved that he’s pouring his heart out to a stranger instead of someone he knows intimately, someone who would look at him with surprise. _Shuichi, this doesn’t sound like you_ , they might say, but Komaeda is blessedly silent.

“Then, um, he comes out of the bathroom — or I move in, kind of, like the whole room becomes the bathroom, the walls melting away — and, um,” Shuichi is squeezing his hand into a fist so hard, he wouldn’t be surprised if he was drawing blood. “Then he’s — he’s looking at me —”

“He,” says Komaeda quietly, and it takes Shuichi half a second to register what he’s said. His eyes fly open, cold horror dousing him.

“ _They_ , I mean, I don’t know—”

“Shuichi.” Komaeda’s hand is on his wrist. “It’s okay.” He works Shuichi’s hands open, prying his fingers out of their clenched grip on nothing. “It’s okay. Take a deep breath.”

Shuichi does, sucking in air he hadn’t realized he needed. Komaeda smiles at him, a new smile, different from the earlier maniac grin. This smile is sympathetic and a little sad. Shuichi isn’t sure what to make of it. At least it somehow feels more honest. 

“The boy in your dreams.” Komaeda pauses, as though considering how best to make his words land lightly. “Do you… know him?”

 _Breathe._ The air shudders out of Shuichi. “I think so,” he says in a small voice. “Sometimes I know him.”

Komaeda nods. “And does he know how you feel?”

Shuichi shakes his head violently, and then wonders what, exactly, it was that he just admitted. It’s hard to keep track of everything Komaeda is saying and implying, double meaning laced through his words like arsenic, and Shuichi feels more than a little dizzy. 

“Okay. And if this boy knew…” Komaeda’s voice is gentle now, like a blanket sliding over Shuichi’s shoulders. At some point, Komaeda moved to sit next to him, and is still holding his wrists, thumbs massaging his palms. “What would you want him to do?”

Shuichi curls into himself. “I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do.”

“No, I don’t.”

“You do.” Komaeda’s hand tips Shuichi’s chin up and Shuichi opens his eyes. He hadn’t even realized that he’d closed them. “Tell me, please. I can help.”

Shuichi swallows hard. Komaeda’s face is so close to his, pale eyelashes throwing moonlight shadows across his cheeks, and something in Shuichi breaks.

“Hold me,” he whispers, and Komaeda’s face cracks open into something full of wonder and hope. He tugs Shuichi into his arms, gentler than expected. Shuichi allows himself to drip silent tears into Komaeda’s shoulder as he winds his arms around the boy, around this human embodiment of luck. He wonders if meeting him here in the garden was the good kind or the bad kind.


End file.
